For westerners, China's history is often reduced to a choice between timeless Confucian ideals or incomprehensible barbarisms such as footbinding or mass slaughter, fueled by generalizations such as "China has five thousand years of history," "China was a Confucian society," "Chinese women were victims," "China is a communist country," and many more. But China is now too globally important to allow such oversimplifications to continue unchallenged, and this engaging and deeply knowledgeable volume counters them vigorously. In concise and accessible style, the contributors scrutinize a range of historical misconceptions that have ramifications for the present and future of China and its relations with the rest of the world. They consider how misunderstandings have arisen and present more sophisticated and nuanced interpretations. Readers will learn how numerous popular beliefs about China's history are mistaken and what new interpretations can help build the more accurate understandings of present-day China that we so badly need. By explicitly addressing common misconceptions, the book persuades readers to reexamine their assumptions about China's history--and thus China in general--and begin to see it as a real rather than largely imagined place. Contributions by: Elif Ak etin, Bridie Andrews, Tim Barrett, Felix Boecking, Michael C. Brose, Marjorie Dryburgh, Imre Galambos, Stanley E. Henning, Christian Hess, Clara Wing-chung Ho, Judd Kinzley, Fabio Lanza, Peter Lorge, Julia Lovell, Rana Mitter, Barbara Mittler, Ruth Mostern, Peter C. Perdue, Hai Ren, Andres Rodriguez, Tansen Sen, Elliot Sperling, Naomi Standen, Wasana Wongsurawat, and Ling Zhang.
China's extraordinary economic development is explained in large part by the way it innovates. Contrary to widely held views, China's innovation machine is not created and controlled by an all-powerful government. Instead, it is a complex, interdependent system composed of various elements, involving bottom-up innovation driven by innovators and entrepreneurs and highly pragmatic and adaptive top-down policy. Using case studies of leading firms and industries, along with statistics and policy analysis, this book argues that China's innovation machine is similar to a natural ecosystem. Innovations in technology, organization, and business models resemble genetic mutations which are initially random, self-serving, and isolated, but the best fitting are selected by the market and their impacts are amplified by the innovation machine. This machine draws on China's multitude manufacturers, supply chains, innovation clusters, and digitally literate population, connected through super-sized digital platforms. China's innovation suffers from a lack of basic research and reliance upon certain critical technologies from overseas, yet its scale (size) and scope (diversity) possess attributes that make it self-correcting and stronger in the face of challenges. China's innovation machine is most effective in a policy environment where the market prevails; policy intervention plays a significant role when market mechanisms are premature or fail. The future success of China's innovation will depend on continuing policy pragmatism, mass innovation, and entrepreneurship, and the development of the 'new infrastructures'.
The Chinese Language is a brief introduction to the main characteristics of Chinese, written to be accessible to beginning students as well as anyone with a general interest in Chinese language and culture. Not a language-learning title as such, The Chinese Language provides a demystifying overview of Chinese from a linguistic, historical and social perspective. Providing basic information such as where Chinese is spoken, the history and earliest written records, regional variations, and a description of the writing system, The Chinese Language provides an excellent starting point for anyone intrigued by the history and basics of Chinese language.
Today, with a new leadership in place, the People’s Republic of China enters a challenging new phase as an emerging economic superpower. The Chinese economy has dramatically changed over the three decades since Deng Xiaoping launched his economic reforms in 1978. It has been transformed from a command economy dominated by state-owned enterprises to a market socialist economy with a wide range of ownership forms, both public and private. In turn, its managers and management have correspondingly undergone a major sea-change. This edited collection attempts to demystify Chinese management, highlighting recent research into these significant changes and their implications in a wide range of business enterprises both in China and overseas. It points to the strategic challenges and issues in terms of realizing the managerial version of the ‘Chinese Dream’. The topics covered include business schools in China, corporate social responsibility, financial services, impression management, international human resource management, international competitive strategy choices, internationalization of firms and the role of science parks. The book was originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.
Featured as Book of the Week by The Wire China in August 2020! If your business has anything to do with China or you simply seek to understand the rise of China, you need to read this book. In The China Paradox, business strategist and historian Dr. Paul G. Clifford uses vivid examples from his deep experience in China to lay bare the delicate and fragile balance of forces which lie at the heart of China’s success. He explains how, against all the odds, the ruling Communist Party boldly led the economic reforms as the surest way to preserve their grip on power. This flourishing of China’s hybrid developmental model is placed firmly in the historical context, shedding light on the legacies that thwarted earlier attempts at change and which today still threaten to render the progress unsustainable. China is taking its place on the world economic stage, displaying business acumen and innovation. But China’s un-reformed political governance, coupled with the challenges resulting from breakneck growth, may hamper the nation’s ability to realize its potential and impact its longer-term prospects. This book is for anyone who needs to understand how China competes, anyone with business or other affairs in China, and anyone involved in foreign trade will benefit from this book. Click to read the author's article on Open Democracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/the-us-should-not-demonize-huawei-it-should-invest-to-compete/ Click here to see a related article in the South China Morning Post: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2134180/reform-or-no-reform-authors-clash-over-chinas-way
A volume in the Chinese American Educational Research and Development Association Book Series Series Editor Jinfa Cai, University of Delaware The book is linked to the annual theme of the 2008 CAERDA International Conference with contributing authors serving as keynote speakers, invited panelists, paper presenters, as well as specialists and educators in the field. The book provides a most comprehensive description of and a theoretically wellinformed and a scholarly cogent account of teaching and learning Chinese in general and in the United States in particular. It examines a wide range of important issues in Chinese teaching and learning: current state in teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) in the United States, US national standards for learning foreign languages K-12, policy making about how to meet the growing demand for Chinese language and cultural education with regard to a national coordination of efforts, professional teacher training in terms of the quantity and quality of Chinese language teachers at all levels, promotion of early language learning, characteristics of Chinese pedagogy, aspects of Chinese linguistics, methods and methodology in teaching TCSL, techniques and technology in Chinese language education, curriculum and instruction in TCSL, cultural aspects of teaching Chinese as a Second Language, issues in Chinese pedagogy, development of Chinese as a Heritage Language (HL) and the issue of cultural identity for bilingual/multilingual learners (particularly bilingual/multilingual children), testing and evaluation in TCSL, Chinese literacy and reading, approaches to instruction and program design, etc.
A distinguished Chinese economist offers a timely, essential exploration of China’s perspective on economy, government, society, and its position in the world. Dr. David Daokui Li has served as an advisor to senior Chinese Communist Party leaders as well as major multinational corporations and international economic institutions. Writing in response to the growing anti-Chinese sentiment and alarmed by the threat of war, Dr. Li pulls from his wealth of firsthand experience to demystify contemporary Chinese society and advocate for understanding between China and the West. In this urgently needed and fascinating book, he explains the inner workings of a rising superpower to help the world understand how it works—and how to work with it. In Li’s hands, an economic and political system that often baffles Westerners becomes coherent, sophisticated, and logical. He begins by explaining how two thousand years of history—from Confucian philosophy and ancient imperial dynasties to Communist Party chairmen from Mao to Deng Xiaoping—profoundly influence China’s leadership today. Li brings the reader into high-level meetings he attended with figures including Xi Jinping, showing China’s approach to governance. Many Westerners imagine that China’s economy and society are as rigid and ideological as Soviet Russia. In his far-reaching exploration of the Chinese economy—from state-owned enterprises, private businesses, the stock market, education, media and the internet to real estate, the environment, and much more—Li reveals that China’s economy and society are in fact diverse, dynamic, and flexible. In demystifying contemporary Chinese society, Li helps readers reconceptualize contemporary China and the implications of its growth. He asserts that China’s rise will be beneficial for the global order, holding out the hope that with shared understanding and mutual learning the Chinese and Western systems will eventually find a way to peacefully coexist.
"DeFrancis's book is first rate. It entertains. It teaches. It demystifies. It counteracts popular ignorance as well as sophisticated (cocktail party) ignorance. Who could ask for anything more? There is no other book like it. ... It is one of a kind, a first, and I would not only buy it but I would recommend it to friends and colleagues, many of whom are visiting China now and are adding 'two-week-expert' ignorance to the two kinds that existed before. This is a book for everyone." --Joshua A. Fishman, research professor of social sciences, Yeshiva University, New York "Professor De Francis has produced a work of great effectiveness that should appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is at once instructive and entertaining. While being delighted by the flair of his novel approach, the reader will also be led to ponder on some of the most fundamental problems concerning the relations between written languages and spoken languages. Specifically, he will be served a variety of information on the languages of East Asia, not as dry pedantic facts, but as appealing tidbits that whet the intellectual appetite. The expert will find much to reflect on in this book, for Professor DeFrancis takes nothing for granted." --William S.Y. Wang, professor of linguistics, University of California at Berkeley
Recounts the history of Tibet, describes how its culture is more similar to that of central Asia than to that of China, and argues that the idea that Tibet is part of China is a relatively new development.